


A Balance Between Mind and Heart

by the_painless_moustache



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark John, Dark John Watson, Murder, Other, Reichenbach-Related, Serial Killer John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 09:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3169457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_painless_moustache/pseuds/the_painless_moustache
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John knows it can't be true. He's not an idiot, no matter what they say.<br/>Sherlock isn't dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Balance Between Mind and Heart

**Author's Note:**

> An old one I never shared. If you like Dark John, well...here ya go.

He was a kind-hearted man. He had few enemies, the most dangerous of which being himself. He was quiet, and calm, and sturdy.

 Until he lost his balance.

 The moment Sherlock tipped over the edge of that roof was the moment John Watson snapped. Because Sherlock Holmes could not be dead. It was _impossible_. Fake or not, someone could not pretend to be so self-centered, so _arrogant_. And someone like that wouldn’t jump off a roof.

 So John waited for Sherlock to come back. Lestrade kept trying to appeal to him, to tell him there was no way. So did Molly. So did Mrs. Hudson. But John just shook his head. “No,” he’d say. “You don’t understand. You don’t _know_ him like I do.”

 Weeks went by like this. Months. Seven of them, to be precise, and on the seventh month someone emerged from the shadows. Someone who John was surprisingly ecstatic to see.

 “Mycroft, hello. How are you?” John moves away from the door to let the older Holmes in. He looks around, but not with his usual distain. “Been awhile. Any word from Sherlock today?”

 “John…”

 John stops for a moment, staring blankly at the door, a peak of his true broken psyche leaking out. But he pulls himself together quickly enough. “Right. Right, of course. Sorry. Tea?”

 “John, you know, don’t you? That he _is_ dead.”

 “Of course.” John mumbles. “No, of course, I saw him jump, didn’t I?”

 “I just…you must know that. You must come to terms with it.”

 “I will. I am. I am, I’m sorry. Tea?”

 They have tea. It’s a nice afternoon, John supposes, to sit and discuss little things. Or it would be, if Mycroft wasn’t slowly but surely cutting into his mind and trying to unravel him. When he leaves, John dials the useless number.

 The voicemail is immediate. “Sherlock.” John says the name before he can stop himself. He takes a breath to steady him. “Sherlock, pick up. Please. I know you…you can’t be…and…” He swallows. “If you don’t come home, I will make you. I will, Sherlock. I know you better than anyone. And…” he trails of, a realization hitting him. “Yes. Yes, I’ll make you come home.”

 

 Lestrade calls him the following Monday. “There’s…there’s been a murder, John. A crazy one. Would you…maybe?”

 “What’s it look like?”

 “Like…nothing I’ve ever seen before.” Lestrade admits. “It’s…gruesome, John.”

 “What do you mean?”

 “He’s been skinned, John. Completely. And dissected. Split open and… _organized._ ”

 “How so?”

 “They took out all his organs. All of them. They…hell, John, they took him _apart_.” Lestrade sighs. “John, I wouldn’t call if I didn’t need the help.”

 “I can’t help you, Greg.”

 John hangs up.

 

 It’s another two weeks before Lestrade calls him again. “John, it’s a serial killer. They’ve done it again. God.”

 “Done what?”

“Taken the victim apart, John. Skin, muscle, bone, organ…anything they could possibly take apart, it’s been done.”

 “I told you I couldn’t help.”

 “I know, but…you’re the next best thing I’ve got, John. Please.”

 He agrees this time.

 

 Lestrade isn’t wrong. In fact, he’s scarily right. The two bodies have been cut apart, cleanly, for show. A pile of skin, a pile of muscle, a pile of organs, a pile of bones. It’s a bit awe inspiring, the time and effort put into them. John can’t do much to help them, like he’d said, but he shares what he sees. What he knows. How the skin was flayed pre-mortem. Some of the muscles came next, a few organs before they actually died.

 “They want to be caught. This isn’t for pleasure.” John says finally.

 “How can you tell?”

 He looks up, blinks as if surprised by the question. “What? Oh. Because someone this careful couldn’t possibly leave this somewhere they could be found.”

 He looks back at the piles, biting his cheek. He doesn’t share what else he knows. The victim wasn’t a particularly savory fellow. In fact, quite the opposite. He’d been a drug lord who’d more than once supplied Sherlock with his dangerous fix. He didn’t tell them that he’d put up a fight, or that it had taken metal restraints to hold him, because the leather ones had snapped. He doesn’t tell them the way he’d cried taking him apart.

 Lestrade calls him with the next two bodies, but John refuses. And he waits. He waits so patiently, but no one comes. No one catches him. Not even Sherlock.

 He stops at six. Six bodies in the span of eight weeks made him nervous, so he stopped. Lestrade’s hair began falling out with the frustration. John wouldn’t discuss the case as a consultant, but he’d discuss it over a pint, and they’d done that more than once.

 “Why is he killing these people? There’s no discernible pattern!”

 “Maybe he’s waiting for something.” John suggests, tapping his fingers against his glass.

 “Like what? To be caught? Well, that fucker might be waiting awhile.” Lestrade flags the bartender over and orders something stronger.

 John gives it a month. When nothing happens, he starts again, this time vowing just one body every two weeks if he felt it was needed.

 The body count goes up to the dozens before Christmas. He lets everyone rest easy over the holiday, quietly sipping tea at home when there’s a knock on the door. Outside is a courier, looking rather unhappy to be working in the snow. He signs and takes the paper with a frown.

 He goes upstairs before opening it, nearly dropping his tea.

  _I know what you’re doing. Stop before it’s too late._

 

 Mycroft is not surprised to see John the next day. “Happy holidays, John. Hope you’re well.”

 “I’m not.” John says, running a hand through his hair and shoving the paper at Mycroft. “Did you send this?”

 “Technically speaking, no.”

 “Did you _write_ it? Is this him? Don’t _lie_ to me.”

 “John—”

 “ _TELL ME!_ ”

 Mycroft sighs. “No. It wasn’t him.”

 “You thought you could get away with it?”

 “You don’t want to be doing this, John. I will—”

 “You will what?” John snaps. “You’ll arrest me? Where is he, Mycroft?”

“Dead.”

 “ _NO!_ No! He’s _not!_ ”

 “John.” Mycroft warns.

 The look of surprise is a slight victory when John pulls his gun on him. He squeezes the bridge of his nose, thinking. Could he kill Mycroft? Oh, yes. Easily. But they’d catch him, and then they’d arrest him, and that would be rather inconvenient, wouldn’t it? Because then Sherlock wouldn’t come home. And he _had_ to come home. “Where is he?”

 Mycroft is quiet, either from shock or resistance, John wasn’t sure. Part of him thinks both. Finally, he speaks. “You won’t shoot me.”

 “No? No, you’re right.”

 John turns the gun. Mycroft’s eyes get bigger. John relishes in it, even with the metal pressing against the bottom of his chin. “Where is he?”

 “Put the gun—”

 “Where. Is. _He?_ ”

“Jo—”

 Mycroft falls as John raises the gun and hits the ceiling. Alarms go off.

 “Look at you.” John muses. “The mighty Mycroft Holmes, British Government, brought down to your arse.” He eyes grow tired, sad. He lowers the gun to his side. “Where is he, Mycroft?”

 The security bursts in, takes John’s gun, drags him out. Mycroft follows. John is very agreeable, and for the first time Mycroft sees how _worn_ he is. How broken. He’s no longer John Watson. He is someone else. And his shoulders fall with the realization.

 

 Sherlock comes home three months later and finds Mycroft in his office, nursing a brandy and quietly waiting.

 “The flat is empty.” Sherlock says.

 “Mm.”

 “Where is John?”

 “Pennington Prison.” Mycroft says quietly, reminiscing. He’d turned him in shortly after their encounter. The proof stored away, ready to be burnt or shared at will. John went willingly. Mycroft had supplied a lawyer who had suggested to plead insanity. But no. John Watson was much too proud and much too guilty for that.

 Sherlock doesn’t seem to process this. “Excuse me? _Why?_ ”

 And Mycroft gives him the folder. And Sherlock looks through it, torn between admiration and horror because this magnificent work was _John_. “He did it for you.” Mycroft tells him. “To get your attention. To make you come home.”

 “No.”

 The older nods. “Yes. He admitted it to me when I last saw him.”

 “ _Why_?”

 Mycroft looks through his glass at his little brother. “He lost his mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's my [tumblr](http://www.thepainlessmoustache.tumblr.com/) birthday! Also,[prompts](http://thepainlessmoustache.tumblr.com/prompts) are open ;)


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